


Lived and Lived and Lived

by Lil_Lioness



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: ((im shitty at tagging)), ((its kinda rushed oops)), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Cuban Lance (Voltron), Fluff, Gay Keith (Voltron), I didn't have a beta and its LATE/EARLY, Kinda, Langst, M/M, also I spelt Kolivan wrong the whole time OOOPS, klance, ok its only klance at the end, soft gays man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 05:54:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13241847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lil_Lioness/pseuds/Lil_Lioness
Summary: The universe was quiet, the universe was actually silent. Some would argue that it’s always silent, but others would argue that sights makeup for sound. Keith liked to believe it, even if he didn’t understand what that meant. But right now, everything was silent. The stars outside passed by at speeds to fast for him to think about, as he rocketed towards the castle of lions.





	Lived and Lived and Lived

The universe was quiet, the universe was actually silent. Some would argue that it’s always silent, but others would argue that sights makeup for sound. Keith liked to believe it, even if he didn’t understand what that meant. But right now, everything was silent. The stars outside passed by at speeds to fast for him to think about, as he rocketed towards the castle of lions. Kolvian had essentially told him to pack his bags and take a leave from the blades, after having gotten into a fight with some who didn’t trust the decision to let a former paladin of Voltron into their ranks. Not, of course that this was the first fight, which is part of the erie quiet. 

The former Red/Black paladin sat contemplating why this particular fight got him sent back to the castle. Usually he was encouraged to stand up for himself, it had actually been a few months since anyone out right challenged his right to be there. In the year and a half that Keith had spent with the Blades, he had learned more about his heritage, how to fight and a hand full of new stealth techniques. He had thought everything was going just fine. 

By the time he reached the coordinates of the castle, he had successfully calmed his nerves, deciding that whatever the reason was, Kolvian had it and it wasn’t worth worrying over. His small podship was docking when he realized he hadn’t told anyone in the castle he was coming back. Something they were used to, Keith just popping up out of nowhere for a small break, but he had always had a time frame then. And it had been a few months, three maybe four, since the last time he had seen his fellow earthlings and the two alteans. 

Once he finally unloaded from his podship, he went in search of someone, literally anyone, to notify of his arrival. Usually he checked Pidge’s makeshift lab, but no one was there. Then he went to the training deck, where Shiro tended to be, only to find it empty as well. He checked the control room for Allura and Coran, to find that both of them were also not in their usual haunts. Going to check the kitchen for Hunk, he heard a bout of laughter coming from the common area, and when the door whooshed open, he was slightly surprised to see the whole team gathered, watching what his best guess was an Altean movie.

“Uh… hey guys?” He quipped from the door, bag still on his back, shuffling on his feet nervously. 

“KEITH!” a chorus of six voices bounced back at him, and he found himself enveloped in a group hug before he could blink. 

“Hey we missed you pal, how’s the Blade going?”  
“How long are you here for this time, because Coran set up a cool new level on the training deck”  
“Dude, you are never going to believe what I found at the space mall!”  
“Keith my boy, you should have let us know you were due!”  
“Keith it’s so good to see you again, I’m surprised Kolvian’s let you leave.”  
“What’s up Mullet man?”  
All six spoke over each other, and suddenly, Keith remembered just what made this place feel so warm. All the hot air from them talking. 

“I don’t actually know how long I’ll be here.. Kolvian actually kinda sent me off as a punishment for getting into a fight? And I hope it’s some earth type food because I can not handle more space stuff. I’d love to checkout the new training level, and for the last time Lance, it isn't a mullet.” He finished with a smile, having missed the banter that was so lacking in the silent halls of the Blade base he spent his “down time” at. 

Had Keith paid more attention, he would have noticed the whole group stiffen a bit with his last comment, and the atmosphere change. Suddenly the smiles became a little more forced than before, and the energy became nervous. The air charged with a secret, bent on staying out of Keith’s reach. 

“It is in fact earth type food, and it looks like it’s about time to start cooking. So Keith if you could go get settled, you can meet up in the dining area and we’ll sit down to eat?” Hunk said, with more authority than Keith had ever heard him use. Hunk smiled tensely down at him, as he lead Lance off to help cook. Pidge, Coran and Allura all wandered out, leaving Keith with Shiro. 

“Well, let’s get you to your room yea?” Shiro added quickly, throwing his arm around Keith’s shoulder and leading him down towards the rooms. 

On the walk down, Keith talked about the fight and Kolvian calling him to his office to talk to him about staying more attentive to himself than what others say, and when they disagreed, Keith found himself stuck in a podship and set back here. While retelling the story, Keith got more and more agitated, the anger and confusion from before returned with vigor. By the time they reached his room however, Shiro interrupted. 

“I asked him to send you back a month ago.” Shiro stood in the door, while Keith dropped his bags on the floor and turned to face his brother. 

“What? What do you mean you asked him to… Shiro what the hell? Do you know how important the Blades are? If they think I’m not commi-”

“Keith. It’s not about you and the Blades. It’s about Lance.” Keith looked at Shiro with nothing less than utter confusion. 

“Lance? That doesn’t even begin to make any sense Shiro.”

“It was a little over a month ago, maybe a few weeks… I don’t really know. Voltron got a distress signal from a planet that we didn’t have any information on. So we went in with caution. But there was civilization. People. Children. And a galra battle cruiser aiming at their most populated city. We took out the cruiser but a glider survived, a couple galra got on planet and took an orphanage hostage. Lance was our best shot… literally. He also refused to even consider leaving until he knew the planet was galra free. So he went down to the surface and… well the planet is galra free but not without cost.” Keith had sat on his bed while Shiro relayed the story to him. He remembered Kolvian saying that Voltron had been seen defending a minor planet. Something they were so clearly capable of doing. 

“What cost. What cost Shiro, what happened?”

“The galra had new blasters… a new model they were testing. Some new strain of quintessence. Something that messes with human biology. Lance’s body is rebelling against him. Shutting down, and nothing we do is helping. He has a few weeks at best? No one really knows. We’ve started doing movie nights and group dinners and god anything to keep his mind off of dying. But… we… I thought you should be able to say goodbye, you should know he probably won’t die in battle. And when he does… well we’ll need a Red Paladin, and Lance has said Red won’t take anyone but you. He said they talked, and Red wants you back, says it was time to bring you back. Keith… you have to understand. We’ve done everything. But Lance has accepted his fate.”

Keith couldn’t breath, the whole universe was crashing down on him. Everything he knew was wrong and the castle was spinning and why was Shiro spinning, was is everything spinning and collapsing. 

Lance was dying. Lance was going to die and it wasn’t going to be on the battlefield with glory, but in pain because some bastard got lucky with a shot. Lance wasn’t going to make it home to his family, to the beach, to the rain. Lance was going to die in space. And everyone had just accepted it. 

“No.” 

“Keith…”

“No. He isn’t going to die. I’m not going to pilot Red again. If Lance dies up here, it’ll be on the battlefield taking down a thousand Galra with him. Lance isn’t going to die.” Keith was standing now, his voice near yelling, face contorted with anger and sorrow and disbelief.

“Hey mullet, nice to know you have faith in me, but I’ve accepted it. Death is death ya know?” there, in the doorway to his room, stood the Red/Blue paladin. 

Looking closer, Keith now saw how sunken his cheeks and eyes were, how waxen his skin looked. He noticed that Lance didn’t stand to his full height, and seemed to be breathing heavier than normal. He was leaning on the frame of the door to Keith’s room, his normally brilliantly blue eyes holding only a fraction of the joy they used to. 

“Hunk man wants you two up there, dinner's getting cold. I wouldn’t keep him waiting much if I were you.” Shiro nodded, and casting one last look at Keith, slowly made his way out of the room and down the hall. “What about you mullet? You coming to eat? Or are you just gonna stare at me?”

Keith couldn’t help but stare, take in all the little differences of the boy in front of him. Nothing seemed right anymore, the universe felt like it was crushing in again. All he wanted was to wrap Lance in a fuzzy blanket, give him tea and hold him close. 

“You too huh? Gonna treat me like I’m breakable, like I’m less than I was? Just because I got hit with some new galra blast doesn’t mean I’m not dying a hero. Doesn’t mean you can all baby me…” Lance’s tone was guarded, defensive. Keith realized then how much this hurt Lance, knowing that he was given a limited number of days, and they wouldn’t include his earth family. In that split moment, he decided to be normal as he could. To give Lance the respect he so greatly craved, the respect of being an equal no matter what. 

“Yea, yea whatever Lover boy. I was trying to figure out what that stain on your shirt collar is… Looks like drool to me…” Keith smirked as Lance’s jaw dropped, and took that as his que to start headed out of the room and down the hall. 

“I- whAT?! KEITH GET BACK HERE I DO NOT DROOL!” Lance followed him down the halls, all shouting at him the whole way to dinner. When they both entered the dining area, attention was shifted to the now very loud Lance. For a moment, everything seemed right. 

It wasn’t for a few days until Keith got to talk to Lance alone, without someone feeling the need to ask Lance how he was, or if he needed something. They had begun training Keith into the team dynamic, with him replacing Lance. Even if Keith still insisted behind closed doors that Lance would be fine. ((Keith wouldn’t admit it, but he had been in touch with the Blades from his strike team, who were working on finding something that might help))

When he got Lance alone, it was by a fluke. Keith hadn’t been able to sleep after a very secretive conference call with his Blades team, who had some findings to report back, that could turn into a real lead. Deciding to just, wander the castle, he heard noises coming from the observation deck, and decided to check it out. There, by the window walls, was Lance. Wrapped tightly in a blanket, with Pidge’s headphones on, and one hand against the glass, he seemed oblivious to Keith at the door. 

“So, you don’t really need all the beauty sleep after all…” Keith was leaning against the door frame when Lance jumped at the sound of his voice. Turning to confront the Red/Black paladin/Blade, he did his best to plaster on a smile.

“Well, with a face like this I don’t really need much help to be beautiful I guess.”

“So…”

“What mullet, you wanna get emotional?” Lance went rigid as Keith approached him, a soft look in his eye. He knew where this was going, knew that the normalcy of Keith being back was to good to be true. 

“Look Lance, I know you don’t want to be treated with kid gloves, but that doesn’t mean we can’t just talk about stuff… or you talk I listen. Or the other way around. Anything works really…” Keith looked sheeping for even suggesting it, and Lance relaxed, letting the emo boy sit next to him. 

“Okay… tell me about the Blades then.” and so Keith launched into stories about training and missions and all the different beings he met. He talked and talked, letting Lance ask questions and laugh and gasp at all the right moments. And as the night cycle went on, and Lance fell more and more drowsy, he stopped responding. After a few hours, Keith was sure that Lance was asleep on his shoulder, but he kept talking. 

“And… and my team… well, I didn’t want to tell anyone. I don’t want to get hopes up. But they’ve been looking into the new quintessence strain. They… they might find a way to reverse whatever this effect is.” With the last word, Lance jerked away from Keith, as though he had burned him. 

“What!? What the hell Keith?”

“What? I thought… I thought you’d be happier?”

“I… god. I-you can’t give me that kind of hope man! It’ll just get crushed and I’ll die anyway. I was at peace with dying. I was at peace and now.. Fuck now I might live? You think I could actually maybe have a chance? What the fuck Keith, what the actual fuck?” 

Lance was standing now, yelling. He seemed scared and agitated, mad even. Keith couldn’t understand why he wasn’t happy, why he wasn’t glad to have hope. 

“Keith, buddy…. God fuck Keith do you know anything about me? Do you know how long it took for me to get into the Garrison? I’m just a kid from Cuba with to many siblings and parents who wanted the best for him. They weren’t supposed to lose me to space, the one place I thought I could thrive. All my dreams took me here, and they lost me to my dreams. I made peace with never seeing them again, never getting to say goodbye and apologize for disappearing. I wrote them letters, and made. My. peace.” despite the lack of sense he was making to Keith, Lance was crying and Keith knew that was bad. Crying meant he had done something wrong… he just wasn’t sure what it was yet. “I made peace with leaving you all, and never seeing us win. I made peace with leaving so many things unsaid. I made peace that I would never be better than you, and you just had to swoop in and play hero??? I made my FUCKING PEACE THAT I COULD NEVER CONFESS TO- you…” Lance went quiet on the last word. So quiet Keith almost didn’t hear him. But he did. He heard him and he surged forward, gathering Lance in a hug. 

If I hug him tight enough, maybe I’ll fix all the little cracks…

“I’m sorry Lance,” Keith murmured, holding Lance as he silently cried. “I am so sorry. I thought… I thought I could help. I thought I could do something right this time. I was being selfish though. I didn’t want to lose you. Your smile and your laugh. The team needs you, more than they need a Red paladin. They need you to hold them together. I’m so sorry I upset you, but I’m not sorry I’m going to save you. Because of you, we’ll have solution for anyone else hit by this blast. We’ll know how to heal others, because you were a hero. Because of your bravery, we’ll know how to help others and more people are going to live. You are going to live Lance, you have to.” Keith held Lance close, whispering endearment to him until the tears stopped and his breathing evened out. The steady beat of Keith’s heart lulled Lance to sleep, and his rhythmic breathing slowly brought Keith to join him. 

And that is how the team found them in the morning, curled on the floor, with Lance wrapped in Keith’s arms. Later that day cycle, Keith’s blade team arrived at the castle with more than one treatment plan ready. And Lance lived, he lived and Keith lived, and they won the war. And when they did, they moved to a small bungalow and bought two cats and lived and lived and lived.

**Author's Note:**

> hahhhahhha this was rushed and its like two in the morning and I just had feels and its lowkey based off of Hamilton "I wrote to the general a month ago" so oooppsssss


End file.
